


the fire

by carrionqueen (nightquill)



Series: The Ocean [1]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M, Hawkes, Lothering, Other, Personal Canon, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-24
Updated: 2016-05-24
Packaged: 2018-06-10 10:14:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6952489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightquill/pseuds/carrionqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The hawk would have been safe if it had stayed, but that isn't what hawks do. // all fears come from some place. cathryn's fear of magic comes from her mistakes. set in lothering long before the blight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the fire

Fire was all she felt. Fire, then nothing. It curled around her body like a cocoon, sweeping across her shoulders like some gossamer blanket her mother would lay over her sleeping form in the summer. Malcolm’s screams were the only thing that kept her present until the fire was gone, and then, with the sound of heavy footsteps closing the distance between them, she felt herself fall into darkness. 

Carver was at her side then. Mother always said that they day Cat had burnt herself was the day she’d earned her brother’s loyalty. Beth hung quietly in the shadows, watching Malcolm as his hands worked, passing over and over Cat’s back and neck and down her left arm. She felt his magic like a cool breath. He was murmuring something and Beth would nod, paying close attention. Her face was a mix of horror and genuine curiosity. Cat smiled. 

“Well, hello there, little bird,” Malcolm’s voice rumbled above her. She couldn’t turn to face him, so she muttered some greeting into the pillow. “Smiling, too. You mustn’t be so badly hurt after all.” 

Carver’s grimace told her otherwise. She couldn’t feel a thing, thankfully, or see it. Not yet. She didn’t see the full damage for weeks and by then it was nothing compared to the hideous images she’d conjured up in her head. 

But she never did cast another fire-ball. Well, there was one time, but that came later. 

\--

Sometimes the children teased her about her knotted hand, the twisted lumps of flesh that wound their way up her arm like ropes or vines. It was red and glossy, and had been for years. She told everyone all about how little she cared – the teasing meant nothing. It afforded her with the opportunity to make up a new, exciting, heroic lie about how she got them and where and when. Carver always backed her up, often telling his friends he’d been saved by his heroically scarred sister. Beth always stood quietly in the shadows, a disapproving stare for telling fibs. She was always the honest one, and Cat loved her for it.

“Cat’s been telling fibs again.”

“Cat stole Jessie Meadowlea’s dolly and tossed it into the river.”

“Cat was climbing trees in her best dress.”

“Cat ate the pudding and blamed it on Carver.”

Okay, so Cat occasionally didn’t love the honesty. Sometimes Beth was a right tattle-tale. But one day when Beth told Father that she’d seen Cathryn crying by the wall near the Chantry, she came home to a pair of gloves. Her eyes were raw. Leandra noticed immediately and pulled her into a tight hug, whispering promises of maple candies in a few weeks and perhaps even some real chocolate. But over her mother’s shoulder she spotted them, a pair of oxblood leather, fine lambskin, folded neatly on her bed. There was a note, too, scrawled in Malcolm’s red ink. 

_Scars are an affirmation of living. (also I love you.)_

He wasn’t home to see her face. Later, years later when she still wore the gloves (but with the fingertips cut off so that they would still fit her slender hands), she would understand why he hadn’t been there. He blamed himself. She would wish that he was still here now, so that she could tell him that she knew it wasn’t his fault. 

\--

Leandra always blamed the fire. That’s why Carver left to join the army. That’s why Malcolm became so absent before taking ill. That’s why Beth died – because Cat couldn’t bring herself to use fire, for Andraste’s sake. Fire would have solved the problems, wouldn’t it? Cathryn wished that she could explain to her mother in detail that Bethany made her own choice and that Cat had had nothing to do with it. She wished that she could shake Leandra and scream in her face, _I have lost something too._ But she loved her mother. 

Carver was the strongest of them. He had lost his twin, the other half of his soul and he was keeping it together. He lit the fires of an evening with a flint and knife, the way Malcolm had taught him, the way he’d perfected and adjusted in all those weeks serving with the King’s finest. Sometimes Aveline would make a suggestion about the way he held the blade but he would look at her, dark eyes cold and tired and she would drop the subject. Cathryn watched him manage and it broke her heart. But, not quite as much as Leandra’s silence. 

When night fell they’d sleep in a sort of circle around the fire. Aveline always took first watch. Cat knew she did so to cry into the night when no one was looking or caring or hearing. She would lay there and listen to the crackle of the fire. It was merry, sweet even. Nothing like the roar of mage-fire, the sticky, liquid flame that dripped on you and spread and sucked and ate away your skin. Carver must have felt her shudder because she felt his fingertips brush hers. He caught them between his, gently squeezing her gnarled hand - his way of saying, _it wasn't your fault._ It wasn't enough, but it would have to do.


End file.
